Posted
by
samzenpuson Sunday October 14, 2012 @08:08PM
from the starting-them-early dept.

First time accepted submitter pseudorand writes "I have a 3 year old that I've so far kept away from TV and computers. I met a gamer who has a 1 year old that plays xbox (probably better than I do). I believe kids should experience the real world first, but computers will obviously be a basic job still for the foreseeable future and I'm afraid I'm letting my kid fall behind. I'd like to responsibly introduce my son to computers so he can start developing hard-eye coordination, typing skills and learning UI concepts. What's the best (Linux, of course) game to get a kid started with? Shoot-em-up's are obviously out, but I'm more concerned with something that will help him understand how to interact with a mouse, keyboard and screen and hold his attention rather than something 'educational' because there's plenty of (probably more effective) ways to teach math, reading, etc. that don't involve a computer. So far I've tried Tux Racer, which held his attention for 10 minutes or so. He doesn't quite get pressing multiple keys simultaneously yet."

All kidding aside, Angband is one of the best games I've ever played to date still. After about 1000 tries, I did an ironman noupstairs win.

The learning curve is moderate to learn all the keystrokes and commands, but the game itself is really indepth and pure fun if you know what depths to get your resists. Make sure you download a version of Angband that has autosquelch in it. The guy who wrote autosquelch did it mostly out of a kind gesture for me! It shows you how cool Open Source guys can be. I wish I had his name, but I don't because I lost that data with a hard drive crash. I thought it was Dr. Andrew White, but Angband's page is saying: Dave Blackston.

I actually encountered something REALLY cool in Zangband once. I charmed some monsters who were spawning and polymorphing themselves. So half the dungeon was a bunch of monsters I owned, and the other half was a bunch of monsters that spawned as enemies. It was like one giant war around me. I have been making video games on my own, on the off chance I can recreate the scene, because it is incredibly... interesting.

Of course Angband's learning curve is about too much for anyone under 9. But if you've never played it, you can find it Here [rephial.org]. It is the predecessor to games like Torchlight. Compared to Nethack, you actually do a lot more hack and slash in Angband because you're fighting tons of monsters. If you want ez mode imo, go half-troll/warrior.

Jesus, you're thinking of giving a kid a game that early? On linux too? Do you want him to grow up without a chance in hell of being able to speak to Women? How about you just let him shit his pants and play with wooden bricks? Looking forwards to your next post - "Which beers should I introduce my 12 year old to?"

Jesus, you're thinking of giving a kid a game that early? On linux too? Do you want him to grow up without a chance in hell of being able to speak to Women? How about you just let him shit his pants and play with wooden bricks? Looking forwards to your next post - "Which beers should I introduce my 12 year old to?"

Letting children play with video games is pretty standard, now-a-days. Most often, simple smartphone games and whatnot rather than Linux games, but not at all uncommon. It's a good way to improve hand-eye coordination and brain development. Not being able to speak to women is pretty much unrelated, outside of the fact that a lot of people who can't do so in the first place gravitate towards computers and games, on account of the fact that they don't involved the possibility of messing up some social convention they are often unable to grasp. But playing games doesn't mean you won't or can't develop such skills, it's more that people who don't have those skills in the first place go towards gaming and computers in general. Don't confuse cause and effect.

And for that matter, 12 is a bit young for alcohol, but 14-15 is a good time to introduce them to small quantities (soft liquor, mind you, beer or wine). Otherwise, when they leave supervision around alcohol for the first time they'll likely overindulge, on account of a lack of experience. If they've been drinking on moderation for several years, that is a lot less likely.

I've been playing video games since my dad brought a 2600 home at age three-four. In my adult years the gaming had waned but my interest in computers has never relaxed. For someone who never properly completed high school and college, I'd say I'm doing pretty well for myself now. I hate that kids these days hang out on skype, warcraft, and Facebook nowadays and don't do shit otherwise though; on the other hand, maybe a new market will open up for them in the future as it did for me...

It's a good way to improve hand-eye coordination and brain development

Playing video games does not improve your hand -eye coordination as well as chucking a ball back and forth to your parents, or climbing a tree, and brain development is better done by being told stories and learning to read as young as you can so you can read stories to yourself.

WHAT? Letting children play with games. Is retarded. All of these anti video game posters have got to be fucking kidding with this.

Is there anyone here who didn't play games (and most likely video games) as a kid? For me personally, playing video games as a kid led me to hacking video game saves which let me to writing my own video games (Eamon was a great early text RPG where you could write your own modules in BASIC).

I never even touched a computer till i was like 8. It might have set back my computer skills (I am mediocre at programming) but my knowledge about the non-digital world and my skills in practical things more than make up for it. I think computer use should be taught after reading is taught with paper. So around 6 years.

You know, basic computer skills, let alone real programming at that young of age just really isn't that important. I agree, you need balance, there are plenty of other things to learn and experience that will make you a much more interesting human being (and better programmer, if that is the eventual career path). Actually - I'd say exposure at that age in computers or other is more about *interest* than *knowledge*. Get a kid interested and they will learn things on their own.

Heh, yeah, I consider that about as helpful as telling a budding chef "you can't read a cookbook, but you are welcome to make up and taste your own recipes."

Though I can't help go back to my earlier complaint about parents exposing (or really not exposing) their kids to all cultures, religions, games, etc...

yeah, my parents wouldn't let me worship a god. But they let me test the ones I created myself. Ha! This loophole let me worship many lousy gods. (just an example... personally I am an atheist, but at l

I found that kids like the lighter beers, at least that is what I liked when I was 12-14. And it's perfectly normal to let a 12 year old drink a little beer and a little wine. Only a wierd society would keep it from kids and young adults until they are 21.

I grew up German, there was wine at the table for all of us. and I cultivated a love of Apfelwein at an early age thanks to dad and grandpa. It's also why when my friends were all drinking the crap from budwiser and getting drunk at 16, I was enjoying a Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier and smart enough to not drink 24 of them and then puke all over the place.

From the same article: But the issue is controversial and his opinions and standing are questioned by Dorothy Bishop, professor of developmental neuropsychology at Oxford University who says that although this is an important topic, Sigman's paper is not "an impartial expert review of evidence for effects on health and child development". "Aric Sigman does not appear to have any academic or clinical position, or to have done any original research on this topic," she said. "His comments about impact of scree

We all smoked a bunch of blond leb before Drugs Are Bad class. We all had a wicked fit of the giggles all the way through class. I'm sure the cop knew we were all baked, but nobody did jack shit about it.

Back in 2000 my buddy and I were forced to take a beginning linux class in order to take the advanced - so we quickly got the root password for the DeadRat server the teacher was running for the class - created some alternates, then installed scorched3d for the rest of the year we played scorched3d while the rest of the class tried to learn.:D Ah... Memories.

similar story when we were in CISCO, we had quake 3 installed and had lan parties every day with a kill switch (alt+tab-esq) that would kill it on all machines at once. so half the class would be gaming while the other half was learning how IP 6 was ONLY a year way (this was 2001....)

Seconded. Married to a teacher who is now running daycare for some friends' kids so she can stay home with ours. I'm a tech for local catholic schools whose teachers and staff can't deal with Linux though I myself have been a user for more than a decade.

We have acquired some older P4 machines and I have one slightly newer one that I set up as an Edubuntu LTSP server. The older ones NetBoot from it.

Point is, my 3-yr-old and her friends between 3 and 4 love Gcompris, and my wife thinks it's incredible. Connect-the-dots, memory, typing blaster and even a simple mouse-learning game where one wipes translucent bricks away to reveal a fun animal picture. It gets used for maybe an hour total per day, so it's a fun reward for good behavior and a pastime while the babies need feeding or lunch prepared or laundry done, not a mindless zombie creator. Compare the activities with what's playing on the Disney or nick channels and you can easily see which is better for a developing mind. Most activities are nearly if not entirely on par with the sensory and craft activities my wife plans with the kids, though visits to the rec center are a nice break from monotony, and they also attend a nursery school 2 days a week. Nice days are also used well with play on the swings and trampoline. I'm just saying by way of comparison for the benefit of those commenters who will say, "why stick your kid in front of a screen?" As though life is binary.

If you watch kids shows WITH the kids it's actually really educational regarding social skills and problem solving (hard problems, like how to work with a team, how to handle anger, etc - much harder than puzzles or physics).

For puzzles and physics, Amazing Alex is great, Save the Puppies, Angry Birds, Bad Piggies - the list goes on. Android is based on Linux right...

Yep. gCompris is a great 'First Computer Program'. I set my kid up with his first PC at about 14 months, and started him out on gCompris. The difficulty/reward is great for very young kids, and the age range it is good for is great for everything from a precocious 12 month old to a normal 7 year old.

Have you looked into Edubuntu (http://www.edubuntu.org/), Qimo (http://www.qimo4kids.com/) or Foresight Linux Kids Edition (http://www.foresightlinux.org)? While they aren't games, they are distributions designed for kids with pre-installed applications and games for ages 3 and up.

Ri-li [sourceforge.net] is a game very young children might enjoy. It has a toy train running around the track, and there's not much to do - just click the button to switch the train tracks if you think it might crash. It has lots of motion and train noises, and is simple. I have heard from more than one parent that their child really enjoys playing it.

I started the grandkids off with the Childsplay http://childsplay.sourceforge.net/ and Gcompris http://gcompris.net/-en- educational games collections as well at Tux Math and Paint http://tux4kids.alioth.debian.org They all are in the OpenSuse repositories or could fool with Quimo http://www.qimo4kids.com/ as a live CD or as a dedicated install.

I found that having two mice connected was a big help in getting them started so I could show them what to do without having to take their mouse away.

Qimo is great. It's a whole Linux distro geared toward young children, and includes Childsplay, GCompris, and TuxPaint.

I set it up an old P4 for my daughter when she turned 2. I remember sitting next to her and watching in awe as, over the course of 20 minutes of playing this "uncover the animal picture" game, she became proficient in using the mouse. Almost two years later, she is still playing very good, fun, appropriate, challenging games. She has always loved the painting program, whic

Tux Paint is a free, award-winning drawing program for children ages 3 to 12 (for example, preschool and K-6). Tux Paint is used in schools around the world as a computer literacy drawing activity. It combines an easy-to-use interface, fun sound effects, and an encouraging cartoon mascot who guides children as they use the program.
Kids are presented with a blank canvas and a variety of drawing tools to help them be creative.

My kids have had great fun using the program, especially with the special effects tools and sound effects. Rather than a structured environment it encourages free play. You can add in your own photos as stamps or just use the extensive collection.

It's funny I disagreed with you above but completely agree here... The key here is the platform/OS/GPL License status are not the goals, they are the tools used to accomplish a very focused goal that in itself will educate and interest children. Have a clear goal in mind first, then find what best matches that goal. That's what I thought was so misguided about the original article question and so many of the replies, it seemed like picking some philosophy and finding goals that support it.

As for the other two things, typing skills and UI concepts, they can be trivially learned by him 10 years from now just as easily. He'll pick them up on his own before that, anyway.

What do you bet that in ten years:
Mice will be dead; everything will be motion tracking, eye tracking, touch tracking, etc.
Nobody will type (by "Nobody I mean you can safely round the number of typists in the world down to zero).
Contemporary "UI Concepts" will seem quaint in the way that most people today view command lines as quaint.

I can't offer any practical advice about helping a 3 year old develop, but ask yourself: "What did your parents do in your formative years?" Are you pleased with how you t

Seriously, take this advice. Eye-hand coordination needs to be learned in 3D and in the real world. Computer games are very limited. Even Wii. Also read up on children and exposure to "screen time". The gamer with the xbox playing 1 year old may be harming his kid. Not giving him an advantage. Some research even suggests that background exposure to TVs for under 2 is detrimental to development.

As for computer skills, playing games is not likely to teach many of those - at least not well. He won't be us

Who is modding this down? It's the best advice in the thread. Learning hand-eye co-ordination from video games is absurd. Go buy a glove and some plush baseballs, since you probably shouldn't be throwing anything harder than that at a three year old. Graduate to baseballs, basketballs, and/or footballs depending on whatever the kid seems to enjoy. The best part is that, at least for the next several years, it doesn't matter how awful you are at sports -- your kid will think you're awesome.

Some of the humble bundle titles (chocolate castle, crayon phisics) are pretty good and educational, stimulating the brain. A three year old is a bit too young, but I would suggest you play together -- this way you can help the child, strengthen the bond between the two of you and steer the educational and entertainment process.

However, please keep in mind that there was an article a few weeks ago that exposure to TV (and maybe a computer?) at an early age may hamper a child's cognitive development.

My 2yo and 4yo daughters are addicted to minecraft, and they're surprisingly proficient at the game. They also play on a variety of websites, but minecraft seems to capture their imagination best.
I 2nd whoever suggested Edubuntu, but not for a 3 year old.

Put a boy in front of a paint program, and what will he draw? Yeah... Mine 5-year-old immediately drew things getting killed. Tux Paint even has stamps (clip art) of military equipment, emergency services stuff, a cross, fire, mushroom cloud, and various tools for beating people to death.

It's fairly easy to make new stamps (clip art) for the kid. You can add an AK-47, RPG-7, iron maiden, rack, breaking wheel, etc.

Tux Paint isn't even limited to violence. The stamps include a hypodermic needle. The line tool

This child needs to be able to grow up in the modern world, not rusticate with your biases against computers and games. It is hard to teach adults a new language, they never become facile speakers. In the same manner, if your child grows up with the ability to use computers and a little later, some programming he will be far better off. That said, he should not spend 150 hours/week on Warcraft. Games help you to master computers - up to a point, after that they waste time.Check with the various online compu

GCompris. Yes, it's boring for an adult, but there is a wide variety of activities - some of which he'll like. It includes TuxPaint which teaches mouse use and drawing. You're late with TV. Get "The Letter Factory", "The Word Factory", and "The Storybook Factory". Let him digest them one at a time - each needs a few months to sink in, then introduce another - he'll be excited. Don't hesitate, if your kid can't read basic words already, your late with these videos.

Wordworld, Dinosaur Train, Sid the Science Kid. All on PBS (assuming US here). Also, get an antenna so you can get PBS Kids during more hours of the day (for scheduling, not additional watching) your cable company does not carry all the subchannels and Kids in not #1 all the time.

I'm a fan of limiting TV. We limited ours to 1 hour per day early on and have migrated to 2 hours (she's 6 now). The "Factory" DVDs are excellent and teach reading. If you're going to teach your kid anything "academic" it should be reading - everything in life is easier if you can read. There is nothing wrong with educational stuff, but free play and getting creative with physical objects/toys is also important. Education is not lame - you sure you're from around here?

And don't worry a bit. Your kid will know how to use tech stuff better than you by the time he's 5 regardless of what you do. But if you must, get him an iPod or iPad and get lots of puzzle games - Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, whatever that silly alligator game is.... But limit screen time per day.

I have a 6-yr-old and a 3-yr-old. So far the smaller one is happy enough with a few kid-friendly games on mom's iPhone (very sparingly, a few times a week at most) but I'm finding the 6-yr-old very engaged with online casual puzzle games. He's not quite ready for escape-the-room-type stuff, but there are quite a few kid-friendly puzzlers out there - check JayIsGames.com, you can search by tags and I use "kidfriendly" and "puzzle" (and "flash" because I'm not downloading anything, even if I did have Window

get a rom for some old ass system 7 or 8 system, let him play stickybear reading, the computer will be simple while still teaching basics, and the edutainment is 10x better than anything released for linux, let alone any platform for the last 10 years.

Why not go with the classics? Get him an old TI-99/4a with the Speech Synthesizer and a bunch of educational cartridges for it. Should be pretty cheap to do. And a composite cable should be pretty inexpensive to get a hold of, which can connect to the RCA A/V jacks on whatever video device he would be using it on.

If he's bright and you're willing to play together until it "clicks," I'd highly recommend Minecraft (Linux supported). Kids generally excel at open world games and Minecraft is as creative as games get these days.
As far as your ban on FPS's, I didn't censor anything for my kid. He grew up playing GTA. He could explore, blow things up and not be tied down by a quest system. He's well adjusted and non-violent. In fact, he'd rather play Pokémon over hardcore titles... or watch kids movies over adult ti

With my 3-year old I started with the iPad instead of the PC. It has a much more natural touch interface and they can get going in minutes vs. struggling to figure out the archaic QWERTY keyboard and mouse/touchpad. As of August the iPad has 30,000+ educational titles and I would recommend Letter School for tracing letters, Doodle Buddy for drawing, Hungry Fish for math, Reading Rainbow for tons and tons of books, Screen Chomp for making basic screen casts, iMove for making videos and of course Amazon Ins

My 4yo has been playing these games for years and he loves them. Most of them are child safe, start with something like Milk Quest. I'm for video games (if the child wants to), I believe my son learned to read just because he wanted to play the games he saw me playing. Of course I don't let him play those games for a variety of reasons, but he's happy to play more sterile games where no one dies and there's no interaction with internet creeps (read: most of my friends).

For your own as well his well being keep him away from games and TV as long as you are capable. It is crack to kids. The real world will provide him with far more variation in Hand Eye coordination than a game can/will ever deliver. Walking is just as import. Take time to read to him. No matter how hard you try to keep games away from him he will be exposed to them regardless. In no time he will master the trivial skills necessary to master game play and keyboards. I am not anti games but I currently ha

Rocks'n'Diamonds is a great Boulderdash / Sokoban / Supaplex / Emerald Mine clone. Distributed under the GPL and packaged for most Linux distros. It's a great puzzle game for kids with nice graphics, SFX and brainteasers. Might be a bit too challenging for a 3-year-old, but great for 10+.

Teach him to type, for a bit. I had this game on one of my mom's old computers.
Then teach him he is in control of the machine.
Then show him Spreeder.com and give him/her good books, until, he/she complains:)

Then say "Slashdot is for big people." You will know if he/she has been reading it. And the resulting discussion should be interesting. (Maybe not true now post Taco).

The controls for neverball are simple -- just move the mouse. My kid particularly likes zooming round in circles, and somehow managed to get to Level 8 (over the course of a few months) by making what appears to me to be fairly random mouse movements.

Enigma also has a similar control simplicity, at least for puzzles that don't involve extra items.

Word War vi is a side-scrolling shoot 'em up '80s style arcade game. You pilot your "vi"per craft through core memory, rescuing lost.swp files, avoiding OS defenses, and wiping out those memory hogging emacs processes. When all the lost.swp files are rescued, head for the socket which will take you to the next node in the cluster.

Few of you will agree with this one, but I let my daughter play it from 2 to 5 years old. She loved it more than any other game. It was hysterical. If you know this game, it's an awesome first-person shooter with guns, grenades, and blood, played on various urban maps. Last I played, it was mostly very skilled diehards with years of experience. She was slow compared to the other players, so she compensated by using some insane machine gun used for close range (IMI Negev). Her favorite thing was killin

After Urban Terror, I had to let her play the usual kid games. She played Pokemon on her DS for years, and found Wizard 101, Roblox and Mindcraft, just like all the other kids. I wound up installing two Windows machines so the kids could play the games their friends were into. My son has gone off with Mindcraft, and built some insane worlds. My daughter is now a vegetarian into horses and animals. Both kids loved playing Star Craft against the computer with me, though I can't play it anymore due to vis

By choosing linux, you expose the child to a different way of working to accomplish the same task. This means when the inevitably encounter a different OS they will have to learn new skills, but will then have a distinct advantage when it comes to learning the third OS or a major upgrade occurs. You also need to consider that most kids are exposed to smart phones and computers so have some experience with this anyway.

Your language example was well chosen. Learning a second language has many additional benefits [duckduckgo.com]. Latin is an excellent choice for someone interested in science.

Don't kid yourself. At that age, the kid won't even consider it a different OS. All of the same tried and true desktop metaphors are there. At about 14 months, I set my kid up with his first computer running Ubuntu Linux, and gCompris. In less than 15 minutes of instruction, and a day or two of free play, he was a competent user. When put in front of Windows, he didn't bat an eye at using the system. It was clear that from his perspective, the two worked the same. The transition was no more difficult

I don't give a crap whether it's Catholicism or Linux, imposing your religious beliefs on a 3 year old is just plain wrong. Like religion, exposing them to a variety and letting them make their own choice is going to make them a more well-rounded person/nerd. If they decide to be a Mormon or Windows user and you disown them, that's your own hangups.

... What's the best (Linux, of course) game to get a kid started with?...

You are making the problem worse by force it to be Linux rather than something your child is likely to see outside your narrow view of the world.

More importantly what is more important to the parent: (1) Software politics or (2) the child's eduction? Basically my concern is what *if* the best educational/edutainment software is available only for Windows?

If the parent's concern is truly for the education of the child it would seem to be appropriate to find the best software first and then see what operating systems that software is available for, not to start with the operating system.

In the USA, children from families that speak languages other than English tend to academically outperform children from homes where only English is spoken. The only exception is Spanish. So teaching your kid Latin as a first language will probably help him/her.

I speak English to my kids, my wife speaks Mandarin, and they went to a Spanish preschool. Compared to that, learning Latin shouldn't be too bad.

To get this thread back on topic: My daughter's favorite game when she was three was "Clifford the Bi

By force it to be Linux rather than something your child is likely to see outside your narrow view of the world. Might as well force him/her to speak Latin at home as well.

The benefits of speaking a 2nd language at home are too well know to dwell upon. You never know, being exposed to one may have saved you from being chained in your sadly narrow view of the world.

Latin, being not only the root language of the Romance languages, it is also a key to better understanding other European languages such as English, German &c., would be undoubtedly provide the child with great advantage. However since hardly any one is fluent enough actually to speak it at home this is unlikely to be a viable option.

As far as OSs, and their GUI frontends. I (doubt|hope) that the differences between a contemporary Linux GUIs and Windows or even Mac will be anywhere near as great as those between our GUIs and those that will dominate some 15 years from now (when said 3 year old may have to use computers professionally). My boys are conversant with linux, windows and OSX (thought they prefer the latter), and this has certainly not inhibited their skills in any one OS. So I can confidently say, without wanting to appear overly offensive, "you are full of shit mate!"

I'm showing my age here, but it only took those of us who grew up without computers (not entirely true, my first computer was a Kosmos Logikus) a week or three to learn how to use the early GUIs. There's nothing in there that is conceptually difficult for a reasonably intelligent young adult to pick up and learning to use a pointing device is a sinch for most anyone under that age of 60 (which isn't to say some 80 year olds don't find it a sinch either).

Computer exposure for children is somewhat overrated. Given the choice between learning multiplication tables by rote (which the school is refusing to teach my kids, "we don't do that any more") and developing "mouse skills" which is considered essential for modern survival, I would choose the former. Thank FOSS for... TUXMATH for teaching well, what the school will not (and you only need a keypad!) But probably not quite for a 3 year old (unless said 3 year old is Terence Tao).